Q17 - Han purple

[morgan.namian]

Upon first encounter, it seemed like every one of these answers was mostly irrelevant to the argument...I've talked myself into believing A is the answer but I'd like to get some better input!

Here's what I have:


Chinese chemists employed the same chemical ingredients used for Han purple in the production of a common type of white glass→ Han purple was probably discovered by accident during glass production

A. The fact that the Han glass and the white glass were produced close to one another does indicate that they could've been made together, or at the same place. Keep it.
B. This doesn’t have anything to do with the argument - if Han purple was used for ceremonies and white was used for household items, that doesn’t say anything about how it was made or how Han was discovered.
C. Out of scope - only a few people knowing how to make it doesn’t mean it was or was not discovered during glass production, or by "fortuitous accident".
D. Easily obtainable ingredients don't weigh on this argument at all - potentially a premise booster, because it supports the fact that any glass was made at all (if it WEREN'T obtainable, then how would there even be any glass?) but I'd generally say this is irrelevant.
E. This establishes white glass as more common, but we don't care which is more common, we want to find something that supports the argument about how purple was discovered.

[sh854]

Same boat as Morgan. Can someone please help?

[jewels0602]

I chose C because if only a few people know how to make Han Purple then it makes it probable that it was accidentally discovered and not something obvious--

I know, the reasoning is terrible but none of the answer choices made sense to me AT ALL.

I re-read the stimulus and the answer choices a couple times but couldn't find a better reasoning than the one provided above...

After seeing that the answer is A, I'm sure there is some better reasoning behind it but can someone please shed some light on it? (really hopefully before tomorrow)

Thanks!

[sAfuRos]

Also chose C. Frankly, this just seems like a shit question and i'm surprised it didn't get unscored.

[sh854]

Can someone please help?

[rinagoldfield]

Hi All,

Thanks for your posts. Morgan.Namian, I think your explanation is pretty on point. Your explanation of (A) is sound:

“A. The fact that the Han [purple] and the white glass were produced close to one another does indicate that they could've been made together, or at the same place. Keep it.”

(A) strengthens the argument by indicating that the conclusion is possible. China covers a lot of land. If the purple pigment and white glass were made in totally different places, then it would be impossible for the pigment to come out of glass production. (A) strengthens by knocking out this possibility.

It sounds like (C) was a tempting answer choice for many test-takers. Some posters argue that “if only a few people know how to make Han Purple then it makes it probable that it was accidentally discovered and not something obvious.”

However, whether something was discovered accidentally doesn’t direct how many people know about it. For example, only a few people know how to make a nuclear bomb, but nuclear bombs were not discovered by accident. On the flipside, Christopher Columbus “accidentally” stumbled on the Americas, but today, just about everyone knows that the Americas exist.

Besides, we really want to know whether Han purple and white glass are related, not whether Han purple was accidentally made.

(B) is out of scope. It talks about the uses of Han Purple and white glass, not how they were made.

(D) if anything, weakens the argument. The argument says “wow! Han purple and white glass use the same ingredients! They must be related!” And this choice says “uhh, those ingredients were everywhere.”

(E) is irrelevant. How many remnants of a material can be found today is unconnected to how that material was discovered.

[brettboresow]

Hi All,
“A. The fact that the Han [purple] and the white glass were produced close to one another does indicate that they could've been made together, or at the same place. Keep it.”

(A) strengthens the argument by indicating that the conclusion is possible. China covers a lot of land. If the purple pigment and white glass were made in totally different places, then it would be impossible for the pigment to come out of glass production. (A) strengthens by knocking out this possibility.

It sounds like (C) was a tempting answer choice for many test-takers. Some posters argue that “if only a few people know how to make Han Purple then it makes it probable that it was accidentally discovered and not something obvious.”

However, whether something was discovered accidentally doesn’t direct how many people know about it. For example, only a few people know how to make a nuclear bomb, but nuclear bombs were not discovered by accident. On the flipside, Christopher Columbus “accidentally” stumbled on the Americas, but today, just about everyone knows that the Americas exist.

Besides, we really want to know whether Han purple and white glass are related, not whether Han purple was accidentally made.

I really struggled with this one. In your explanation you said "we really want to know whether Han Purple & white glass are related" Why do we want to know this? The argument tells us that the Chinese chemists employed the same chemical ingredients so it seems obvious to me that they are related by way of same chemical ingredients.

I had the conclusion as the last sentence "Han was probably discovered by fortuitous accident during glass production". Since we had to strengthen I was looking for a way that led to them discovering it by accident or something that ruled out them discovering an alternative way.

None of the answers seemed great but I thought B & D were particularly garbage answers so I got rid of them. I couldn't really differentiate between A, C, & E and felt like they could all be reasoned to strengthen the argument.

A - I felt like A indicated that it was produced in a small geographic region which meant it was probably known to relatively few people. But just because a few people know something doesn't mean it was discovered by accident. It could have just been esoteric information. Also, if most of the known fragments were produced in a small area I felt like that contradicted the premise that white glass is common. I would think that if something is common it wouldn't be limited to a small geographic area (especially in the context of China).

C - I felt like C had the same problem as A with only a relatively few people knowing. In A I made an assumption that small geographic area meant it was probably known to relatively few people. This explicitly said my assumption in A.

E - This is what I ended up choosing. I liked E because I thought if white is found in more surviving artifacts than purple is than maybe its possible that the reason for this was because it was discovered by accident. I know there are a hundred different other reasons why there could be more white glass than Han purple. And if anything I made a mistaken reversal and E was a premise booster that "white is more common"

I know I'm doing something wrong, but I'm not quite sure what. I'm thinking because I identified the conclusion differently. But I'm not sure where the idea that we need to know how Purple & White are related comes from?

Thx,

Brett

[laura.bach]

I agree with the above reasoning for (A):

"(A) strengthens the argument by indicating that the conclusion is possible. China covers a lot of land. If the purple pigment and white glass were made in totally different places, then it would be impossible for the pigment to come out of glass production. (A) strengthens by knocking out this possibility."

Another thought on eliminating (C) is that it doesn't let us compare glass to Han purple. Note that the correct answer, (A) addresses both substances, whereas (C) only talks about Han purple. (Note also that B, D, and E each directly compare both substances, though are wrong for other reasons.) This lack of direct comparison raised a red flag for me.

The response I would have with (C) in this case is: what about glass techniques? What if the technique for glass production was also only known to a very few people? What if the technique for glass production was known to even fewer people than the Han purple production technique? In the latter scenario, it seems more likely a couple of Han purple makers accidentally have discovered glass -- which would weaken the conclusion.

I think the presumption that's easy to make with (C) is that Han purple was known to a very few people, so the glass technique was known to more people, but the answer choice doesn't let us make that comparison.

I think, if available, strengthen questions such as this are safer when both elements are expressly compared to each other in the answer choice.

[bswise2]

Hi All,

I've seen many explanations regarding this infamous Han purple question--none of which have addressed my specific confusion.

I chose the correct answer A during my timed take, but hesitantly changed it to E during review. I'm still confused and I'd love for someone to read my reasoning and give me some guidance as to where I am going wrong.

CTX: How the ancient Chinese of the Qin and Han dynasties synthesized Han purple has confused scientists.
P1: A common type of white glass and Han purple were produced with the same chemical ingredients.
P2: Both were produced by similar processes involving high heat and lead.
C: Han purple was probably discovered by accident during glass production.

One thing I noticed was the how the premises give us similarities regarding how white glass and Han purple were produced, but then the conclusion randomly brings up how Han purple was discovered. My thoughts were that the correct answer will probably have something to do with this. Either that, or the wrong answers would exploit this subtle distinction.

Another thing I noticed was that, except for the contextual information about Han purple confusing scientists, every piece of information that was given in the stimulus equally applies to both the white glass and Han purple. All we know is that they both have the same properties--we don't know if one was better than the other or that one was more prevalent. So the conclusion could also very well be that "White glass was probably discovered by accident during Han purple production." We have the same exact support for that conclusion as we do the conclusion we are given. So I figured the correct answer choice could assist with this by creating some sort of supporting distinction.

A- I originally chose this because I did not initially notice the produced/discovered distinction in the stimulus. Upon review, I noticed it and figured that A was wrong because where Han purple was produced does not seem play into how it was discovered. Something can be discovered intentionally in the middle of a forest (anywhere really), but then the following production of that thing can be in a factory once it had been improved and commercialized. To me, production and discovery are two clearly distinctive events. Also, this just contributes to the similarities between white glass and Han purple. There is no distinguishing effects of this answer choice, so, like I pointed above, the conclusion could still just as reasonable be: "White glass was probably discovered by accident during Han purple production."

(B, C, and D were easy for me to eliminate. For anyone interested in seeing my reasoning for these answer choices, feel free to ask! It seems as though most of these answer choices were addressed above).

E- I never loved E, especially since it ambiguously used the term "more" without telling us how much more (1% more or 80% more?). I also didn't love that E qualifies the artifacts as "surviving artifacts." I initially figured that, the fact that white glass was more prevalent in surviving artifacts could be because 1) it was more easily preserved or 2) it was more commonly used. Then I realized that if it was more commonly used, this answer choice could be introducing the possibility that white glass was used longer than Han purple was. I thought that that was what they were trying to get us to see? That white glass was produced and discovered first and that is why there is more of it than Han purple? If that was the case, then I guess it supports the conclusion. It weakly supports it, but it presents us with a new possibility that would render the conclusion more likely. Also, this does point out the supporting distinction between white glass and Han purple that would lead us to the conclusion we are given rather than the alternative conclusion: "White glass was probably discovered by accident during Han purple production."

Between A and E, I do not like either of them. I really struggled between both of these answers, but I finally concluded that A requires us to assume that discovery and the following production process are the same event. To me, that's equivalent to saying that the birth of a child and the child's following life events are the same event. They are just not. E also wasn't a great answer. I recognize the steps and assumptions needed to choose E. But given the remaining 4, I figured (and still consider) it to be the best option because it at least slightly introduced a possibility for the conclusion to be true.

Help! Thanks in advance!

[YajingW401]

Han purple is an artificially-synthesized pigment which was either purposely developed in a chemist's lab (not mentioned) or discovered as a by-product during production of something else (white glass).

Then the white glass and the Han purple were produced at almost the same location allows one of them to be the by-product of the other.

This is how I see (A) strengthens.

[joycel330]

Here I think (E) is wrong because it only mentions “surviving artifacts”, which means we don’t know whether, in the Qin and Han dynasty, compared with the Han purple, a larger number of white glass was produced. So this answer actually doesnt tell us anything.

Hope that helps.

[LukeM22]

So, in contrast to people above, I think this question might be difficult because we're trying to strengthen the plausibility of a number of multiple things:

1) Were these two substances discovered in conjunction?

2) Did the invention of white glass precede Han Purple?


A) I initially didn't like A because it doesn't strengthen 2. Basically, it's a really weak strengthener that only wins because it independently provides support in the correct direction. What's also annoying is that this could also strengthen the plausibility of a completely different thesis: that Han Purple preceded Glass, and Glass was actually discovered in the process of Han Purple. But it does increase the likelihood of any type of accident, which is why it wins.

B) I could see this being tempting, because the fact that white glass was used for more everyday items implies that white glass must have preceded Han Purple. This requires an additional assumption, however fair it may be: that household items were invented first. Thus, it is not as independent as A and therefore incorrect.

C) Irrelevant.

D) Irrelevant

E) Tempting for the same reason as B: it' s a perfectly defensible to assume that more commonly produced items would be more important, which in turn would make sense for them to be invented first. But, according to the information given, we don't know that, so this also incorrect.

[JoyZ920]

I also chose C and thought A was not a good answer.

So I tried to find out why A is better.

A mentions that Han purple was only produced in a small area, and I thought, this doesn't strengthen, maybe other places also had a similar accident that discovered Han purple, so whether they were produced in a concentrated small area doesn't matter.

However, I have another guess: there is something unique about this small area.

The argument says all the chemical ingredients, heat, temperatures, processes are the same, BUT, maybe there's something else that the small area has that can make a difference. Such as maybe this area has acidic air, or the clay they use have lower density. I don't know, something is unique.

That's my guess.

[Laura Damone]

Hi Joy!

Here's the way I think about A.

The argument gives a causal explanation of a phenomenon: Accident in glass production caused discovery of Han purple.

The most common way to strengthen a causal argument is to rule out an alternative cause. So, I'd prephrase an answer saying that Han purple couldn't have been the result of some other thing.

But there are other standard ways to strengthen causal arguments, too:

1. You can prove that the effect didn't come before the cause.
2. You can show a control group - an instance in which the absence of the cause is correlated with the absence of the effect.
3. You can reduce the likelihood of counterexamples.

Answer A reduces the likelihood of counterexamples. If most of the known fragments of Han purple and white glass were produced within a small geographical radius, that makes it less likely that there would be counterexamples that would weaken our claim of causality (such as Han purple being produced somewhere that white glass wasn't, or vica versa).

Make sense?

[rarnold]

Tricky question. Didn't like any answer and definitely missed it.

Something to also consider is that in order for the conclusion to be true, it is necessary that there be *some* overlap of white glass and purple pigment making. If they came from totally different regions, the argument collapses. So it would strengthen the argument to know they came from the same place (there are still many questions, but strengthening is not ensuring). A confirms that, indeed, there was an overlapping region. It would strengthen the argument if that region was big or small, frankly--but the fact that it's a small region is all the better.